A Fringe Mainstreamed, or Tracing Antagonistic Slang between 4chan and Breitbart before and after Trump

Open Access
Authors
  • P. Van Eecke
  • J. Van Soest
Publication date 2023
Host editors
  • R. Rogers
Book title The Propagation of Misinformation in Social Media
Book subtitle A Cross-platform Analysis
ISBN
  • 9789463720762
ISBN (electronic)
  • 9789048554249
Chapter 8
Pages (from-to) 165-185
Publisher Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press
Organisations
  • Faculty of Humanities (FGw) - Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR) - Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)
Abstract
We studied whether the vernaculars of the extremely vitriolic, “politically incorrect” sub-forum of 4chan/pol/ have crossed over to the comment section of Breitbart News, a right-wing news website that was found in earlier research to have played a significant “agenda-setting” role in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. We study if crossover exists around both the 2016 and 2020 elections. In our analysis, we find evidence suggestive of such crossover, centered around the presence first on 4chan and later Breitbart of a series of racist, antagonistic and otherwise extreme terms. This crossover of 4chan/pol/’s vitriolic vernacular marks an expansion of hyper-antagonistic “alt-right” politics to Breitbart’s more mainstream right-wing populist audience.
Document type Chapter
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.1231864.11 https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720762_ch08
Published at https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/61940
Downloads
jj.1231864.11 (Final published version)
Permalink to this page
Back